Intravaginal pack and its manufacture



July 6, 1948. o. POPPER ET AL 2,444,528

INTRAVAGINAL PACK AND ITS MANUFACTURE Filed July 11, 1944 Patented July6, 1948 UNITED- STATES PATENT OFFICE INTRAVAGINAL PA K MANUFACTUR OttoPopper and- Gord nesburg, Transvaal; said Melvill assignm- AND ITS E onKest'ell Melvill, J ohan- Union of- South In the Union of South 2'Claims. (Cl. 1'28-285) This invention relates to absorbent packs forintroduction into the vagina.

Desirable characteristics of such a pack are direct accessto et surface;The'present invention provides a compressed availabilit in a'highdegree.

A pack according absorbent sheet mat to the invention consists of erial,folded into a series of ely reversedpleats and compressed transverselyto-the lines of folding of the It may be additionally compressed inother directions. The pack is desirably of the extrusion from thevagina.

The pleated formation may be produced in various ways. According to aconvenient method, the pleating is arrived at by a progressive procedure in which the flat sheet of material is cony of the original sheetsurface persists Africa;

0- said Popper Application July 11', 194

4, Serial No. 544,434 Africa July 30, 1943 lengthwisein the completedpack and to which the corrugations are to be parallel, is lodged"against a member that acts as a stop to prevent bodily displacement ofthe sheet. The opposite material ofwhich they denser.

Preferably the pack according to this invention is of the hairpin formcomprising two separate w of the finished as to receive the flat sheetparallel plates are spaced apart by about the thickness of the sheet In.The upper plate l2 can be swung back about a pivot 14 to enable thesheet to be laid upon the lower plate i3, and then replaced.

Spaced away from the end ii of the pair of plates isa member 16, inwhich is fixed a die I! having a bore IB of cylindrical form to shapethe pack to its final cylindrical form.

Between said end 15 of the plates and said die 11 is a member 19providing the funnel shaped passage 20. The function of said passage 20is to mould the pack material, as the latter is pushed through it, fromthe form which said material has when it enters said passage 20, to thefinal cylindrical form or the die bore 18. With this object the crosssectional shape of said passage at its end 2| is that of a fiatrectangle of the same width as the gap between the plates l2, l3 and thecross section changes progressively to ;:the aforesaid final cylindricalform at the end 22.

23 is a blade po itioned with its length extending in the direction A inwhich the sheet I0 is to be compressed and in which it is thereafter tobe driven through the passage 29. The blade is also, positioned with itswidth W, or greatest cross-sectional dimension, transverse to theconfining plates l2, l3. Said blade can be moved in the direction of itslength. l

, In making use of this apparatus, the sheet I0 is inserted into thecasing as shown in Figure 11, whereupon the blade 23 is applied to thecentre of length of the edge 24 of the sheet that is distant from thefunnel member 19, and is pushed forward in the direction of the arrow A.It thus drives the edge 24 of the sheet towards the opposite edge 25.Said edge 25 is held for a time substantially stationary by the end face26 of the member Hi. This action causes aseries of even and parallelcorrugations, indicated by 2'1, Figure II to appear in the sheet; and asthe blade 23 continues to move forward, the corrugations are pressedtogether and thereby progressively assume the form of pleats.

At the same time the leading edge 25 of the sheet I!) begins to bulgeinto the passage 20 as shown in Figure III. There the converging walls28 offer dragging resistance to the advance of the outer parts of theedge 25; so that the pleated sheet now-progressively assumes a morerod-like form; and by bending at its centre where the blade pressure onit is concentrated, begins the formation of the two legs 29 turned backalong the sides of the blade. Further blade advance, Figure IV, finallydrives the doubled rod into the bore 18 which shapes it to cylindricalform. Since, in this operation, the thrust of the blade elongates theblank to some extent due allowance for such elongation is made indetermining the length L of the sheet 10.

The blade 23 is then retracted but the shaped providing the forwardlyverse to the width dimension of pack may be left in the bore 18 for atime in order to set; and its setting may be assisted by such treatmentas heating. The member 16 havin been moved to another position, thecompleted pack is ejected from the bore 18 by a plunger 38, Figure V. r.

lnorder .to facilitate the pushing forward of the pack material: toprevent said material being cut through by the blade; and to ensure thatthe pack is not retracted from the bore 18 when the blade is withdrawn,the blade is formed in steps '31 progressively diminishing in thicknesstowards the free end of the blade and providing the narrower thrustingshoulders 32. Also in order further to combat the tendency of the bladeto retract the pack from the bore 18, the latter is formed with a numberof annular grooves 33 directed acute edges 34 that are effective toresist movement of the pack I in the backward direction.

I A withdrawingcord 35 is sewn to the free original sheet H) in theproper position to appear at theend of one of the legs 29.

We; claim:

1. The method of making a vaginal pack from a materially rectangularsheet of compressible absorbent material, which consists in forming thesheet into a, series of parallel corrugations and compressing saidcorrugations transversely to the length of their ridges and therebyconverting them into pleats and compressing the pleated article tocoherent rod form.

2. A vaginal pack of rod shape substantially longer than itsdiameter andof materially cylindrical fornuiormed of a sheet of absorbent materialwhich sheet is in its lengthwise dimension at least equal to the lengthof the final pack, said sheet folded-atlines of folding that areparallel with the length dimension of the sheet and transthe sheet-intoa series of parallel and successively reversed pleats, the pack beingcompressed transversely to its length and to said lines of folding,which lines are preserved lengthwise in the final pack.

' OTTO POPPER.

GORDON KESTELL MELVILL.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Sept. 28, 1943

